Q3 2004
July Aug August 2004: Criticism of the Homeland Security Terror Alert System In early August 2004, Bush administration officials make multiple television appearances to defend increased alert levels in three cities during the previous week (see August 1, 2004). They also highlight the administration’s focus on terror threats. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says “You have to go out and warn. You have a duty to warn.” New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, appearing on the same program, says that he takes the warnings “very seriously,” adding that they “helped to make us even more alert.” However, retired General Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme commander and Democratic presidential nominee, says that the way in which the warnings are used “undercut the credibility of the system.” Former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke says the Bush administration’s warning system is “a laughingstock” among state, local and business officials he has talked to. He says that Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge “is not a good spokesman for this issue. When he says things like ‘Here’s a warning,’ then in the next breath says the president is doing a great job, that just raises suspicions.” 8/9/2004 Criticism of the terror alert system is wide-ranging. Robert Butterworth, a trauma psychologist in Los Angeles, says the alert system creates “anticipatory anxiety,” in which unnecessary fear is spread among the public. Others believe that the very nature of the system is counter-productive. Robert Pfaltzgraff, a security expert at Tufts University, says that the system could alert terrorists to the information discovered by US officials and could jeopardize sources. The alerts could also be used by terrorists to mislead US officials. “Everyone is looking at truck bombs, car bombs, and suicide bombers,” says Randall Larsen, CEO and founder of Homeland Security Associates; “How about if they planned a different kind of attack?” An increase in the alert level could also be seen as a challenge by a dedicated terrorist cell. “There’s going to be a core group of people who want to do it in any event, and might even view it is a dare to see if they can actually do it,” says Juliette Kayyem, a homeland security specialist at Harvard University. “Basically it’s been a failed system so far.” SCIENCE MONITOR, 8/4/2004 Entity Tags: Tom Ridge, Wesley Clark, Rudolph (“Rudy”) Giuliani, Robert Pfaltzgraff, Robert Butterworth, Homeland Security Associates, Frances Townsend, Condoleezza Rice, Juliette Kayyem, Randall Larsen, Richard A. Clarke Category Tags: Terror Alerts, Internal US Security After 9/11 August 2004: Abu Hamza Again Arrested, for Offenses under British Law Leading radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is again arrested. He is already in prison, but this is because he is awaiting proceedings on his extradition to the US, where he faces criminal charges (see May 27, 2004 and May 27, 2004). However, the British government decides it would look bad for Britain to hand over Abu Hamza for prosecution in the US for crimes committed in Britain. Therefore, the British want to try Abu Hamza at home, and the police are instructed, in the words of authors Sean O’Niell and Daniel McGrory, to “build a case, and do it swiftly.” The police decide to use tapes of Abu Hamza preaching that they seized from his home in 1999 (see March 15-19, 1999) but later returned to him (see December 1999), as they now decide the tapes show Abu Hamza making inflammatory statements that reach the level of incitement to racial hatred and soliciting to murder. O’Niell and McGrory will comment: “America wanted to put Abu Hamza on trial for recruiting, financing, and directing terrorism, charges that could see him jailed for up to a hundred years. But British prosecutors chose to intervene and to accuse him of lesser offences, mostly under a century-and-a-half-old Victorian statute. The central charge was that he had crossed the boundaries of freedom of expression—the criminal equivalent of ignoring the park keeper’s ‘Keep off the grass’ sign. Somehow Britain managed to make it look as if Abu Hamza was getting off lightly again.” Abu Hamza will be charged with the offences two months later, and will be convicted in 2006 (see January 11-February 7, 2006). AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 295 Entity Tags: Abu Hamza al-Masri Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism August 1, 2004: FBI Whistleblower Sends Scathing Letter to Chairman of 9/11 Commission Sibel Edmonds writes a blistering critique of the 9/11 Commission’s final report in a letter to the commission’s chairman Thomas Kean. She says the commission failed to investigate and report the information she provided in February (see February 11, 2004) regarding the problems she witnessed while working as a contract translator in the FBI’s translation unit. She also explains why she thinks the attacks were not stopped and why the government will not prevent future attacks. “If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited ‘direct pressure by the State Department,’ and in other cases ‘sensitive diplomatic relations’ is cited.… Your hearings did not include questions regarding these unspoken and unwritten policies and practices. Despite your full awareness and understanding of certain criminal conduct that connects to certain terrorist related activities, committed by certain US officials and high-level government employees, you have not proposed criminal investigations into this conduct, although under the laws of this country you are required to do so. How can budget increases address and resolve these problems, when some of them are caused by unspoken practices and unwritten policies?” 8/1/2004 Entity Tags: Thomas Kean, Sibel Edmonds Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds August 1, 2004: Terror Alert Issued Using Old Information; Alleged to be Politically Motivated The Bush administration issues a terror alert in the wake of the Democratic presidential convention, which ended on July 29, 2004. New Code Orange alerts are put into effect for New York City, Newark, and Washington, DC. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge says, “Now this afternoon, we do have new and unusually specific information about where al-Qaeda would like to attack.… Compared to previous threat reporting, these intelligence reports have provided a level of detail that is very specific. The quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen and it is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information.… As of now, this is what we know: reports indicate that al-Qaeda is targeting several specific buildings, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia; Prudential Financial in Northern New Jersey; and Citigroup buildings and the New York Stock Exchange in New York.” OF HOMELAND SECURITY, 8/1/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 8/3/2004 But Ridge fails to mention that the so-called “casing disks” are from 2000 and 2001, nor does he discuss the fact that the decision on whether to issue the alerts had been hotly debated by officials over the weekend. Within 24 hours, the age of the intelligence is leaked, causing a controversy about the merit and urgency of the orange alert. 2006, PP. 325-326 The next day it will be revealed that the warning was based on information from the computer of recently captured al-Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan (see August 2, 2004). President Bush and his top advisors learned of the arrest and subsequent “turning” of Noor Khan just the day before. They decide to publicize an alert based on data captured with Noor Khan, even though doing so could jeopardize a sting operation launched just days earlier in which Noor Khan is contacting dozens of al-Qaeda operatives around the world (see July 24-25, 2004). 8/8/2004 But even though Khan was arrested just weeks before, one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert says, “There is nothing right now that we’re hearing that is new. Why did we go to this level?… I still don’t know that.” Homeland Security officials admit that that there is no indication that any terrorist action was imminent. “What we’ve uncovered is a collection operation as opposed to the launching of an attack,” says one. However, administration officials insist that even three-year-old intelligence, when coupled with other information about al-Qaeda’s plans to attack the US, justifies the security response in the three cities. President Bush says of the alerts, “It’s serious business. I mean, we wouldn’t be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real.” A senior counterterrorism official says, “Most of the information is very dated but you clearly have targets with enough specificity, and that pushed it over the edge. You’ve got the Republican convention coming up, the Olympics, the elections…. I think there was a feeling that we should err on the side of caution even if it’s not clear that anything is new.” POST, 8/3/2004 Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says he worries “every time something happens that’s not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. It’s just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there’s some of both.” But conservatives defend the alert and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry swiftly moves to disassociate his campaign from Dean’s remarks. YORK OBSERVER, 8/4/2007 Author William Rivers Pitt points out that Laura Bush and daughters Barbara and Jenna make high-profile visits to the Citigroup Center in New York City on the first day of Ridge’s new orange alert. Noting this was one of the target buildings, Pitt asks, “George W. Bush sent his entire family to the very place that was supposedly about to be blown to smithereens?” Pitt concludes, “Bush and his administration officials are using terrorism—the fear of it, the fight against it—to manipulate domestic American politics. They are, as they have every day for almost three years now, using September 11 against their own people.” (.ORG), 8/4/2004 Entity Tags: Tom Ridge, Taliban, William Rivers Pitt, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, Al-Qaeda, Howard Dean, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan Timeline Tags: 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: Terror Alerts, Internal US Security After 9/11 August 2, 2004: Bush Officials Leak Name of Cooperating Al-Qaeda Operative, Ruining Investigations Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. BBC The New York Times reveals the identity of al-Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. Bush administration officials allegedly revealed his name to the Times in an attempt to defend a controversial US terror alert issued the day before (see August 1, 2004). PRESS, 8/10/2004; SUSKIND, 2006, PP. 325-326 Officials from the Department of Homeland Security apparently gave out the name without revealing that Khan had already been turned and was helping to catch other al-Qaeda operatives. TIMES (LAHORE), 8/8/2004 A few days later, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice confirms that US officials named Khan to the reporters “on background.” GLOBE, 8/10/2004 But some days after that, anonymous Pakistani government sources will claim that Khan’s name was initially leaked by Pakistani officials. 8/17/2004 Middle East expert Juan Cole suggests both accounts have merit. In the hours after the August 1 terror alert that was based on information secured from Khan’s computer, reporters scramble to determine the source of the alert. One reporter learns of the Khan arrest from a CIA analyst, though the analyst refuses to give out any names. Cole believes that New York Times reporter David Rohde then acquires Khan’s name from his Pakistani sources and confirms it through US sources at the Department of Homeland Security. 8/19/2004 Khan, an al-Qaeda computer expert, was arrested in Pakistan on July 13 and quickly began cooperating with investigators. He started sending e-mails to other operatives around the world and asked them to report back in. As they replied, investigators began tracing their locations. But Khan’s name is revealed before his computer contacts could be fully exploited. Many al-Qaeda members, including some suspected plotters planning strikes on US targets, escape arrest because of the outing. One Pakistani official says, “Let me say that this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some al-Qaeda suspects ran away.” PRESS, 8/10/2004; SUSKIND, 2006, PP. 325-326 Intelligence reports also indicate that the exposure of Khan makes al-Qaeda members more cautious in their electronic communications. Many cells abruptly move their hideouts, causing the US losing track of them. 8/9/2004; VILLAGE VOICE, 8/2/2005 Some are critical about the leak of Khan’s name: Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane’s Defense publications, says, “The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse. You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al-Qaeda, when it’s so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place? It goes against all the rules of counterespionage, counterterrorism, running agents, and so forth. It’s not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it’s on the front pages every time there’s a development, is it?” British Home Secretary David Blunkett is openly contemptuous of the White House’s management of the information. “In the United States there is often high-profile commentary followed, as in the current case, by detailed scrutiny, with the potential risk of ridicule. Is it really the job of a senior cabinet minister in charge of counter-terrorism to feed the media? To increase concern? Of course not. This is arrant nonsense.” 8/9/2004 Other high-level British officials are “dismayed by the nakedly political use made of recent intelligence breakthroughs both in the US and in Pakistan.” They complain that they had to act precipitously in arresting low-level al-Qaeda figures connected to Khan instead of using those suspects to ferret out more senior al-Qaeda figures. These officials are “dismayed by the nakedly political use made of recent intelligence breakthroughs both in the US and in Pakistan.” YORK OBSERVER, 8/11/2004 Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) writes in a letter to Bush officials, “I respectfully request an explanation about who leaked this Mr. Khan’s name, for what reason it was leaked, and whether the British and Pakistani reports that this leak compromised future intelligence activity are accurate.” GLOBE, 8/10/2004 Senator George Allen (R-VA) says, “In this situation, in my view, they should have kept their mouth shut and just said, ‘We have information, trust us’.” PRESS SERVICE, 8/10/2004 Middle East expert Juan Cole notes that the leak of Khan’s name forced the British to arrest 12 members of an al-Qaeda cell prematurely, allowing others to escape. “This slip is a major screw-up that casts the gravest doubts on the competency of the administration to fight a war on terror. Either the motive was political calculation, or it was sheer stupidity. They don’t deserve to be in power either way.” TIMES (LAHORE), 8/8/2004 Salon’s Dale Davis says, “Sadly, the damage Bush administration’s machinations have caused to the goal of defeating al-Qaeda will be measured in the loss of the young American servicemen and women who carry the burden of their failed policies.” 8/13/2004 Entity Tags: John Loftus, Juan Cole, New York Times, James Ridgeway, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, George W. Bush, Dale Davis, Douglas Jehl, George F. Allen, Tim Ripley, Al-Qaeda, David Rohde, David Blunkett, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics August 2, 2004: Retiring Whistleblower Criticizes FBI FBI agent Mike German quits the FBI and becomes a whistleblower against the bureau. He claims that FBI superiors committed illegal acts to hinder his investigation into terrorism in Florida (see September 2002). He complains, “What’s so frustrating to me is that what I hear the FBI saying every day on TV when I get home, about how it’s remaking itself to fight terrorism, is not the reality of what I saw every day in the field.” He also says, “Opportunities to initiate proactive investigations that might prevent terrorist acts before they occur, which is purported to be the FBI’s number one priority, continue to be lost, yet no one is held accountable.” He cites “a continuing failure in the FBI’s counterterrorism program” which is “not the result of a lack of intelligence, but a lack of action.” YORK TIMES, 8/2/2004 Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mike German Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Internal US Security After 9/11 August 3, 2004: 7/7 London Bombers Stay Free Because of US Outing of Al-Qaeda Operative Mohammad Sidique Khan. London Times British agents are forced to arrest about a dozen of low-level suspected al-Qaeda operatives as a result of the August 1, 2004, outing of Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan by the US (see August 2, 2004). One important figure, Dhiren Barot, is among the arrested (see August 3, 2004). But the British are forced to move before they are ready, and many higher-level al-Qaeda operatives in Britain, including three of the 2005 London bombers (see July 7, 2005)—Mohammed Sidique Khan, Hasib Mir Hussain, and Magdy El Nashar—escape the hastily formed dragnet (see August 3, 2004). NEWS, 7/14/2005 Sidique Khan will be able to later complete the planning and execution of the July 7, 2005, London bombings (see July 7, 2005). Sidique Khan is connected to at least one of the suspects arrested by British authorities, but because of the unexpected outing of Noor Khan, he and other al-Qaeda bombers slip through the British nets. NEWS, 7/14/2005; ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS (ARUTZ SHIVA), 7/19/2005 Sidique Khan and other London bombing suspects had started working on a London bomb plot in 2003. Noor Khan’s computer shows that there were plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington. Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry, will later say, “There’s absolutely no doubt Khan was part of an al-Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Britain.… It is very likely this group was activated… after the other group was arrested.” NEWS, 7/14/2005 Entity Tags: Magdy El Nashar, Al-Qaeda, Alexis Debat, Hasib Mir Hussain, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, 2005 7/7 London Bombings August 3, 2004: Al-Qaeda Suspect Arrrested in Britain; Suspected of Planning Major Attacks Dhiren Barot. London Metropolitan Police Dhiren Barot, a Londoner of Indian descent who converted to Islam and fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is arrested along with about a dozen other al-Qaeda suspects by British authorities (see August 3, 2004). Barot, who uses a number of pseudonyms, including Abu Eissa al-Hindi, will be charged with several crimes surrounding his plans to launch attacks against British and US targets. Barot’s plans were discovered in a computer owned by al-Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in July 2004 and was helping US intelligence until his outing by US and Pakistani officials on August 2, 2004 (see August 2, 2004). Though Barot is not believed to be a high-level al-Qaeda operative, he has connections to some of al-Qaeda’s most notorious leaders, including bin Laden and 9/11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), who, according to the 9/11 Commission, dispatched him to “case” targets in New York City in 2001. Under the alias Issa al-Britani, he is known to have been sent to Malaysia in late 1999 or very early 2000 by KSM to meet with Hambali, the head of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah. According to the commission report, Barot may have given Hambali the names of 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. Barot may have traveled to Malaysia with Khallad bin Attash. Bin Attash is believed to be one of the planners behind the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). Barot’s trip to Malaysia came just days before the well-documented January 2000 al-Qaeda summit where early plans for the 9/11 bombings were hatched (see January 5-8, 2000), though US officials do not believe that Barot was present at that meeting. British authorities believe that Barot was part of an al-Qaeda plan to launch a mass terror attack using chemical and/or radioactive weapons. Barot and other suspects arrested were, according to Western officials, in contact with al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, who themselves were communicating with bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders as recently as July 2004. 8/20/2004 Barot’s plans seem to have focused more actively on British targets, including London’s subway system. In November 2006, Barot will be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes, and eventually sentenced to thirty years in prison by a British court. 11/7/2006; BBC, 5/16/2007 Entity Tags: Tawfiq bin Attash, USS Cole, Nawaf Alhazmi, Hambali, Dhiren Barot, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Khalid Almihdhar, Jemaah Islamiyah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11 August 4, 2004: Pakistan Continues to Support the Taliban The New York Times reports that, “For months Afghan and American officials have complained that even while Pakistan cooperates in the fight against al-Qaeda, militant Islamic groups there are training fighters and sending them into Afghanistan to attack American and Afghan forces.” One prisoner captured by the Afghan government says Pakistan is allowing militant groups to train and organize insurgents to fight in Afghanistan. Groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US and/or Pakistan have simply changed names and continue to operate freely. An anonymous Western diplomat says, “When you talk about Taliban, it’s like fish in a barrel in Pakistan. They train, they rest there. They get support.” The New York Times comments, “Western diplomats in Kabul and Pakistani political analysts have said that Pakistan has continued to allow the Taliban to operate to retain influence in Afghanistan.” YORK TIMES, 8/4/2004 Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, Taliban Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan August 5, 2004: Republican Senator Alleged to Have Leaked Info to Fox Reporter The press reports that according to a Justice Department investigation, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), then the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, leaked highly classified information to Fox News reporter Carl Cameron regarding al-Qaeda communications in the hours before 9/11 (see June 19, 2002). After Vice President Dick Cheney threatened the then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham (D-FL—see June 20, 2002), Graham and then-House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-FL) pushed for a Justice Department investigation into the leak. Though the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office conducted a probe, and even empaneled a grand jury, the Justice Department decided not to prosecute anyone, and instead turned Shelby’s name over to the Senate Ethics Committee, which will decline to pursue charges against him. Shelby states that he did not leak any classified information to anyone, and says he has never been informed of any specific allegations. The FBI demanded that 17 senators turn over phone records, appointment calendars, and schedules. One Senate Intelligence Committee staffer told the FBI that Shelby had leaked the information to show the shortcomings of the intelligence community in general and CIA Director George Tenet in particular. Though two senior Justice Department officials, then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and then-criminal division chief Michael Chertoff, refused to approve subpoenas for journalists, Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that he was a recipient of Shelby’s leak. He also told investigators that he saw Shelby talking with CNN’s Dana Bash; after Shelby’s discussion with Bash, Cameron divulged the information Shelby had leaked to her, and CNN broadcast the story a half-hour after the conversations. Cameron told FBI agents he was irritated that Shelby had shared the same information with a competitor, and added that he delayed broadcasting the story because he wanted to ensure that he was not compromising intelligence sources and methods. Cameron was never subpoenaed and did not testify under oath. Bash refused to cooperate with the investigation. POST, 8/5/2004; NATIONAL JOURNAL, 2/15/2007 Entity Tags: Larry D. Thompson, Dana Bash, Carl Cameron, CNN, Bob Graham, Federal Bureau of Investigation, George J. Tenet, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, US Department of Justice, Michael Chertoff, Porter J. Goss, Fox News, Richard Shelby, Senate Ethics Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties Category Tags: 9/11 Congressional Inquiry August 6, 2004: Clinton Questions Bush Prioritizing Iraq over Al-Qaeda Former president Bill Clinton questions the priorities of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” asking why the administration is issuing groundless terror alerts “based on four-year-old information” (see August 1, 2004). He asks rhetorically, “Now, who is the threat from? Iraq? Saddam Hussein? No. From bin Laden. And al-Qaeda. How do we know about the threat? Because the Pakistanis found this computer whiz Naeem Noor Khan and got his computer and gave it to us so it could be analyzed (see August 2, 2004). … [We basically are dependent on Pakistan to find bin Laden…to break in and find the computer people and give it to us because we got all our resources somewhere else in Iraq.” He continues to ask why Bush isn’t focusing on bin Laden: “Why did we put our number one security threat in the hands of the Pakistanis with us playing a supporting role and put all of our military resources into Iraq, which was, I think, at best, our number five security threat? After the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, after the conflict between India and Pakistan and all the ties they had to Taliban, after North Korea and their nuclear program. In other words, how did we get to the point where we got 130,000 troops in Iraq and 15,000 in Afghanistan? It’s like saying… Okay, our big problem is bin Laden and al-Qaeda. We now know from the 9/11 Commission, again, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it. Right? We now know that al-Qaeda is an ongoing continuing threat, even though when I was president we took down over 20 of their cells, they still had enough left to do 9/11, and since then, in the Bush years, they’ve taken down over 20 of their cells. But they’re operating with impunity in that mountainous region going back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan and we have only 15,000 troops in that country.…We would have a better chance of catching them if we had 150,000 troops there rather than 15,000.” Asked if the US could have captured bin Laden in the days and months after 9/11, he replies, “We will never know if we could have gotten him because we didn’t make it a priority….” BROADCAST CORPORATION, 8/6/2004 Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, 9/11 Commission, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism August 9, 2004: British Government and Islamist Militants Said to Be Tacitly Supporting Mutually Beneficial ‘Covenant of Security’ An article in the New Statesman examines the “covenant of security”—an apparent long-standing tacit agreement between radical Islamist militants and the British government to leave each other alone. Mohammed Sifaoui is a French-Algerian journalist who managed to infiltrate al-Qaeda cells in both France and Britain. He says that, for many years, militants have used Britain as a safe haven and in return have refrained from attacking inside Britain, but have used this haven to plot attacks on other countries. Sifaoui comments: “The question becomes a moral one. Should the British authorities accept that there are terrorists in their country who kill others abroad? I think that today the British authorities must face their conscience.” Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical London imam and head of the British militant group Al-Muhajiroun, tells the New Statesman that he agrees with Sifaoui’s premise that Britain is a safe haven. He tells a story about the companions of the prophet Mohammed who were given protection and hospitality when traveling to Abyssinia. This resulted in a notion in the Koran of a covenant, whereby a Muslim is not allowed to attack the inhabitants of a country where they find safe refuge. Bakri concludes that it is unlikely British-based Muslims will carry out operations in Britain itself. But Hassan Butt, a former spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, suggests that there are British militants who are prepared to break their covenant with the British. He warns that “any attack will have to be massive. After one operation everything will close down on us in Britain.” STATESMAN, 8/9/2004 Ironically, several months before this article is published, a group of Al-Muhajiroun supporters were arrested before they could explode a large fertilizer bomb in Britain (see Early 2003-April 6, 2004). In early 2005, Bakri will say that the covenant of security with Britain has been broken and will imply that attacks inside Britain are now permissible (see January 17, 2005). Entity Tags: Hassan Butt, Al-Muhajiroun, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, Mohammed Sifaoui Category Tags: 2005 7/7 London Bombings, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Omar Bakri & Al-Muhajiroun August 14, 2004: Evidence Mounts Afghan Drug Profits Help Fund Al-Qaeda, but US Troops Do Nothing The Independent reports that “there is mounting evidence that Afghanistan’s booming opium trade is funding terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.” The governor of Kandahar, in a joint press conference with a US general, states, “One of the most important things prolonging terrorism is drugs. We are 100 percent sure that some of the top terrorists are involved in drug smuggling, and eradication of this industry would not only benefit Afghanistan but would be a step towards eradicating terrorism worldwide.” The Independent comments, “Patrolling US troops routinely turn a blind eye to opium farming and trading, ignoring poppy fields, and have recruited warlords suspected of being drug dealers to fight al-Qaeda.” Troops are explicitly told not to engage in drug eradication (see November 2003). It is believed that the US and allied military forces are overstretched in Afghanistan, and would face a violent backlash if they took more steps to confront drug trafficking. The Independent notes, “The drugs business is widely believed to have corrupted officials up to cabinet level, and many Afghans fear that they may have exchanged Taliban fundamentalism for rule by narco-mafias in the future.” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has raised the possibility of using the 17,000 US soldiers still stationed in Afghanistan to take a more active role against the drug trade. 8/14/2004 However, nine months later, no such change of policy will be evident. It will be reported that US and Afghan officials decided in late 2004 that a more aggressive anti-poppy effort is “too risky.” YORK TIMES, 5/22/2005 Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan Category Tags: Afghanistan, Drugs Mid-August 2004: Analyst Says Pakistan, Not US, Outed Double Agent Former Pakistani government official Husain Haqqani says that Pakistan, not the US government, may have originally leaked the news to the international press that Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an al-Qaeda operative turned informant for the US and Pakistan, was a double agent (see August 2, 2004). The leak of Khan’s identity ruins his capability to provide information about al-Qaeda and allows senior al-Qaeda operatives to escape arrest. Haqqani writes that there are two possible reasons for Pakistan’s decision to leak such damaging information: either Pakistani officials were eager to demonstrate their success in penetrating al-Qaeda, or, more likely, that Pakistan wanted to curb the inroads being made into al-Qaeda in order to keep the terrorist group safe and functional. A second leak, from Pakistani intelligence officials like the first, fingered US officials for the leak. The US government accepted the responsibility for outing Khan because, Haqqani writes, administration officials were complicit in the leak, and because the Bush administration is involved in a twisted, mutually duplicitous relationship with the Musharraf regime of Pakistan: “ostensibly driven by the mutual desire for security, there is clearly a political element to the relationship related to the survival of both the Bush and the Musharraf governments.” 8/17/2004 On August 6, 2004, former President Bill Clinton accused the Bush administration of essentially contracting out US security and the hunt for Osama bin Laden to Pakistan in its zeal to wage war in Iraq (see August 6, 2004). One consequence of the decision to subcontract the hunt for members of al-Qaeda to Pakistan is that the terrorists appear to be regrouping and regaining in strength. POST, 8/14/2004 Haqqani believes that the two have mutual political concerns: while Pakistan cooperates, to a point, in hunting down al-Qaeda members, the government of Pervez Musharraf is more secure. In return, Pakistani officials, known for their reticence, have lately been unusually forthcoming in issuing well-timed reports designed to help Bush’s re-election efforts. For instance, on July 29, just hours before John Kerry’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, Pakistan’s interior minister, Faisal Hayat, held an unusual late-night press conference announcing the arrest of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the man wanted for the 1998 terrorist bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (see July 25-29, 2004). 8/17/2004 Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, George W. Bush, Faisal Hayat, Pervez Musharraf, Husein Haqqani, John Kerry, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, Al-Qaeda, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11 August 20, 2004: Salah Finally Arrested Mohammad Salah, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Abdelhaleem Ashqar are indicted on racketeering conspiracy charges. Salah and Ashqar are arrested. Marzouk, considered a high-ranking Hamas leader, is out of reach in Syria. Marzouk had been charged in 2002 on related matters (see December 18, 2002-April 2005). Ashqar was already under house arrest on related charges of contempt and obstruction of justice. The three are accused of using US bank accounts to launder millions of dollars to support Hamas. The indictment alleges the laundered money was used to pay for murders, kidnappings, assaults, and passport fraud. Many of the charges date to the early 1990s (see 1989-January 1993) and had been the subject of legal cases in 1998 and 2000 (see June 9, 1998; May 12, 2000-December 9, 2004). YORK TIMES, 8/21/2004; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/24/2004 Salah and Ashqar had been living openly in the US for several years. The US had declared Salah a “designated global terrorist” in 1995 and he returned to Chicago in 1997 (see February 1995). The media reported on this in 2003 but they still were not arrested (see June 2-5, 2003). In 1993, Ashqar took part in a secret Hamas meeting in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI (see October 1993). NEWS, 6/12/2003; NEW YORK TIMES, 8/21/2004 Entity Tags: Mohammad Salah, Abdelhaleem Ashqar, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzouk Category Tags: Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Terrorism Financing August 21, 2004: 9/11 Commission’s Terrorist Financing Conclusions at Odds with Media Accounts The 9/11 Commission releases a report on terrorism financing. Its conclusions generally stand in complete contrast to a great body of material reported by the mainstream media, before and after this report. For instance, while the report does mention some terrorism-supporting organizations in great detail, such as the Global Relief Foundation or Al Barakaat, many seemingly important organizations are not mentioned a single time in either this report or the 9/11 Commission Final Report. The Commission fails to ever mention: BMI, Inc., Ptech, Al Taqwa Bank, Holy Land Foundation, InfoCom, International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League, Muwafaq (Blessed Relief) Foundation, Quranic Literacy Institute, and the SAAR network or any entity within it. Additionally, important efforts to track terrorist financing such as Vulgar Betrayal and Operation Greenquest are not mentioned a single time. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 61; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 134-5 Some select quotes from the report: “While the drug trade was an important source of income for the Taliban before 9/11, it did not serve the same purpose for al-Qaeda. Although there is some fragmentary reporting alleging that bin Laden may have been an investor, or even had an operational role, in drug trafficking before 9/11, this intelligence cannot be substantiated and the sourcing is probably suspect.” Additionally, there is “no evidence of al-Qaeda drug funding after 9/11.” COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 22-23 “Contrary to some public reports, we have not seen substantial evidence that al-Qaeda shares a fund-raising infrastructure in the United States with Hamas, Hezbollah, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 24 “The United States is not, and has not been, a substantial source of al-Qaeda funding, but some funds raised in the United States may have made their way to al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups. A murky US network of jihadist (holy war) supporters has plainly provided funds to foreign mujaheddin with al-Qaeda links. Still, there is little hard evidence of substantial funds from the United States actually going to al-Qaeda. A CIA expert on al-Qaeda financing believes that any money coming out of the United States for al-Qaeda is ‘minuscule.’” COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 24 The notion “that bin Laden was a financier with a fortune of several hundred million dollars” is an “urban legend.” “Some within the government continued to cite the $300 million figure well after 9/11, and the general public still incorrectly gives credence to the notion of a ‘multimillionaire bin Laden.’” COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 20, 34 (A few months after this report, it will be reported that in 2000 over $250 million passed through a bank account jointly controlled by bin Laden and another man (see 2000).) “To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks.… Ultimately the question of the origin of the funds is of little practical significance.” COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 144 “The US intelligence community has attacked the problem terrorist funding with imagination and vigor” since 9/11. YORK TIMES, 8/22/2004 According to the New York Times, the report “largely exonerates the Saudi government and its senior officials of long-standing accusations that they were involved in financing al-Qaeda terrorists.” YORK TIMES, 8/22/2004 Author Douglas Farah comments on the Commission’s report, “The biggest hole is the complete lack of attention to the role the Muslim Brotherhood has played in the financing of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. While the ties are extensive on a personal level, they also pervade the financial structure of al-Qaeda.… According to sources who provided classified briefing to the Commission staff, most of the information that was provided was ignored.… The Commission staff simply did not include any information that was at odds with the official line of different agencies.” 8/27/2004 Entity Tags: Muwafaq Foundation, Vulgar Betrayal, Operation Greenquest, Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, Quranic Literacy Institute, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Muslim World League, SAAR Foundation, Muslim Brotherhood, Ptech Inc., InfoCom Corporation, Al-Qaeda, Al Taqwa Bank, 9/11 Commission, BMI Inc., Al Barakaat, Central Intelligence Agency, Douglas Farah, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, International Islamic Relief Organization, Global Relief Foundation, Hamas Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Terrorism Financing, Al Taqwa Bank, BMI and Ptech, 9/11 Commission August 21, 2004: 9/11 Commission Confused Over Hijackers’ ID Documents The 9/11 Commission attempts to make a list of all identity documents obtained by the hijackers, but its account, contained mostly in its Terrorist Travel Monograph, may be incomplete: The Commission says several of the hijackers obtained USA ID cards in the summer of 2001 (see (July-August 2001)), although at least one, and possibly more of the cards is fake, and this is not mentioned by the Commission. According to it, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Abdulaziz Alomari obtained their cards on July 10. However, the Commission gives conflicting dates for Salem Alhazmi, Majed Moqed, and Ahmed Alghamdi. For example, in one place it says Alghamdi got his card in July and in another it says he got it in August. At least one card, that of Khalid Almihdhar, is fake and ID forger Mohamed el-Atriss will be arrested after 9/11 and sentenced to jail for forging IDs for the hijackers (see (July-August 2001) and November 2002-June 2003). The Commission further says that the Alhazmi brothers’ cards were “found in the rubble at the Pentagon,” citing a US Secret Service report. Although an image of a damaged USA ID card belonging to Nawaf Alhazmi will be produced as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, according to the 9/11 Commission Salem Alhazmi was unable to produce any photo ID when checking in for his flight on 9/11 (see (7:25 a.m.-7:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001), so it is unclear how his card came to be at the Pentagon. In addition, in the Commission’s Terrorist Travel Monograph, the mention of Salem Alhazmi’s card in the list of hijackers’ ID will be followed by a reference to an endnote. However, this endnote is missing; COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 27-29, 31-32, 34-44 ; US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006 FBI Director Robert Mueller will later say that the six hijackers who obtained USA ID cards plus Mohamed Atta obtained unspecified identification cards in Paterson, New Jersey (see July 2001). However, it is unclear whether this statement refers to the USA ID cards, or a different set of ID cards not mentioned by the 9/11 Commission; The Commission will say that Satam Al Suqami did not obtain any ID document in the US, which is why he had to take his passport on his final flight. The passport was found shortly after the plane he was traveling on hit the WTC (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 27-29, 31-32, 34-44 However, Florida media reported a man named Satam Al Suqami obtained a Florida ID card on July 3, 2001, around the same time as several other hijackers obtained similar cards; PETERSBURG TIMES, 9/16/2001 Ahmed Alhaznawi had a Florida’s driver’s license and two duplicates. Although the Commission mentions the original license and second duplicate, it does not mention the first one, issued on July 24, 2004. PETERSBURG TIMES, 12/14/2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 28, 32, 33 Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Salem Alhazmi, Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Satam Al Suqami, 9/11 Commission, Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alghamdi, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 9/11 Commission August 30, 2004: Half of New Yorkers Believe US Government Deliberately Failed to Act on 9/11 Foreknowledge A recently conducted Zogby poll shows that “half (49.3 percent) of New York City residents and 41 percent of New York citizens overall say that some US leaders ‘knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.’” Further, despite the recent completion of the 9/11 Commission investigation, 66 percent of New York City residents and 56 percent of New Yorkers want to see another full investigation of the “still unanswered questions” regarding 9/11. 8/30/2004 The poll is commissioned by the activist group 911Truth.org and is the first US poll to ask such a question. The Washington Post is the only major US newspaper to mention the poll results, and only mentions them as an aside in a longer article. No New York newspapers mention the results. POST, 9/1/2004 Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Zogby International Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: US Government and 9/11 Criticism Autumn 2004: US Misses Chance to Learn Secrets from Taliban’s Top Drug Kingpin Bashir Noorzai. DEA Haji Bashir Noorzai, reputedly Afghanistan’s biggest drug kingpin with ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was arrested by US forces then inexplicably released in late 2001 (see Late 2001). He lives in Pakistan with the protection of the ISI, but in June 2004, the Bush administration adds his name to a US government list of wanted drug figures. Concerned that he may eventually be arrested again, he agrees to hold secret talks with a FBI team to discuss a deal. According to author James Risen, “The message the Americans delivered to Noorzai was a simple one: you can keep on running, or you can come work with us. Cooperate, and tell us what you know about the Afghan drug business, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their financiers.” Arrangements are made for Noorzai to meet the FBI team in a hotel in the United Arab Emirates to finalize a deal. But the FBI team never arrives. According to Risen, “American sources add that the local CIA station in the UAE was so preoccupied with the war in Iraq that it was unable to devote any attention to the Noorzai case.” Noorzai eventually tires of waiting and returns to Pakistan. One US official familiar with the case says, “We let one of the big drug kingpins go, someone who was a key financier for al-Qaeda, someone who could help us identify al-Qaeda’s key financiers in the Gulf. It was a real missed opportunity. If the American people knew what was going on, they would go nuts.” 2006, PP. 152-162; CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, 1/25/2006 Entity Tags: Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, Haji Bashir Noorzai, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bush administration Category Tags: Drugs, Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan Autumn 2004: President Bush Authorizes Military, and Not Just CIA, to ‘Find and Finish’ Terrorist Targets At the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, President George Bush issues an Executive Order on the “War on Terrorism” authorizing the military “to find and finish” terrorist targets, including certain al-Qaeda network members, the al-Qaeda senior leadership, and other high-value targets. The order was cleared by the national-security bureaucracy. This gives more responsibility to the Defense Department that was previously given to the CIA. YORKER, 1/24/2005 SOURCES: UNNAMED PENTAGON CONSULTANT Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: US Military, 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics Sept September 2004: CIA Said to Have Less Operational Expertise on Al-Qaeda Now than on 9/11 Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, complains, “In the CIA’s core, US-based bin Laden operational unit today there are fewer operational officers with substantive expertise on al-Qaeda than there were on 11 September 2001. There has been no systematic effort to groom al-Qaeda expertise among operational officers since 11 September… The excellent management team now running operations against al-Qaeda has made repeated, detailed, and on-paper pleas for more officers to work against the al-Qaeda—and have done so for years, not weeks or months—but have been ignored…” MONTHLY, 12/2004 Entity Tags: Michael Scheuer, Central Intelligence Agency, Alec Station Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11 September 2, 2004: Bond Firm Sues Saudis For Allegedly Supporting 9/11 Attacks Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, a bond-trading firm that lost 658 employees in the World Trade Center attacks, files a $7 billion lawsuit against the government of Saudi Arabia for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. The lawsuit names dozens of other defendants, including many Saudi banks and Islamic charities. Many of the defendants had also been named in the still-pending $300 billion Ron Motley lawsuit (see August 15, 2002). The Cantor Fitzgerald lawsuit claims the Saudi Arabian government “knew and intended that these Saudi-based charity and relief organization defendants would provide financial and material support and substantial assistance to al-Qaeda.… This uninterrupted financial and material support and substantial assistance enabled the al-Qaeda defendants to plan, orchestrate and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.” PRESS, 9/3/2004 Entity Tags: Ron Motley, Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda, Cantor Fitzgerald Securities Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Other 9/11 Investigations, Terrorism Financing, 9/11 Related Lawsuits September 3, 2004: Report: Israel Maintains ‘Huge, Aggressive’ Spy Operations Inside US The Los Angeles Times reports that US officials claim, “Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States that has long attempted to recruit US officials as spies and to procure classified documents….” In turn, US agents have long monitored Israeli diplomats and agents in the US. An intelligence official who had recently left government says, “There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States.… Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.… The denials are laughable.” The Times adds, “Current and former officials involved with Israel at the White House, CIA, State Department, and in Congress had similar appraisals, although not all were as harsh in their assessments.” Officials note that Israel is considered a very close ally and is frequently given highly classified information. But it is also noted that US and Israeli intelligence agencies do not completely trust each other. ANGELES TIMES, 9/3/2004 Entity Tags: US Congress, Central Intelligence Agency, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), White House, US Department of State Category Tags: Israel September 7, 2004: Senator Bob Graham Claims Cover up of Saudi Connection to Two 9/11 Hijackers Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) alleges that the White House has covered up possible Saudi Arabian government connections to hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar. In an interview to promote his new book entitled Intelligence Matters, he contends that evidence relating to these two hijackers, who lived in San Diego, “presents a compelling case that there was Saudi assistance” to the 9/11 plot. AND NUSSBAUM, 2004; COPLEY NEWS, 9/7/2004 In the words of author Philip Shenon, Graham is “convinced that a number of sympathetic Saudi officials, possibly within the sprawling Islamic Affairs Ministry, had known that al-Qaeda terrorists were entering the United States beginning in 2000 in preparation for some sort of attack,” and that “Saudi officials had directed spies operating in the United States to assist them.” 2008, PP. 51 Graham also concludes that President Bush directed the FBI “to restrain and obfuscate” investigations into these ties, possibly to protect US-Saudi relations. The San Diego Union-Tribune notes, “Graham co-chaired the exhaustive Congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks and is privy to still-classified information about the probe.” Graham claims that Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan are Saudi intelligence agents. He also claims that the FBI deliberately blocked his inquiry’s attempts to interview Abdussattar Shaikh, the FBI asset who was a landlord to the above-mentioned hijackers (see November 18, 2002). The questions the inquiry wanted to ask Shaikh went unanswered because of FBI maneuvering. AND NUSSBAUM, 2004; COPLEY NEWS, 9/7/2004 Entity Tags: Osama Basnan, Saudi Arabia, Omar al-Bayoumi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Abdussattar Shaikh, Bob Graham, Bush administration Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Bayoumi and Basnan Saudi Connection, 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Saudi Arabia September 7, 2004: Cheney: Electing Kerry Subjects US to Risk of Second Terrorist Attack Vice President Dick Cheney says that a victory by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in the upcoming election will put the US at risk of another “devastating” terrorist attack along the lines of 9/11. Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, calls Cheney’s remarks “un-American.” Cheney tells a group of Republican supporters in Iowa that they need to make “the right choice” in the November 2 election. “If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again—that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,” Cheney says. “And then we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we’re not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.” Edwards responds: “Dick Cheney’s scare tactics crossed the line.… What he said to the American people was that if you go to the polls in November and elect anyone other than us, and another terrorist attack occurs, then it’s your fault. This is un-American. The truth is that it proves once again that they will do anything and say anything to keep their jobs.” Edwards says that a Kerry administration “will keep the American people safe, and we will not divide the country to do it.” Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack says Cheney’s comments merely reflect “a difference in policy” between the Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards tickets, and adds: “This is nothing new. This is nothing inconsistent with his views. This is an overreaction to something we have used repeatedly and consistently. This is something that both the president and vice president have talked about consistently, the need to learn the lessons of 9/11. He was not connecting the dots.” Later, Womack complains that Cheney’s remarks were taken out of context: “If you take the whole quote, the vice president stands by his statement. But if you just take a chunk, that’s not what he meant.” 9/7/2004 Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Anne Womack, John Kerry, John Edwards Timeline Tags: 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics September 9, 2004: Car Bombing in Indonesia Said to Be Funded by Al-Qaeda Damage to the Australian embassy. Associated Press A car bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, kills ten people and injures about 200 more. Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), said to be the Southeast Asian arm of al-Qaeda, takes credit for the attack. A year later, a militant on trial for involvement in the attack claims that al-Qaeda funded the operation. 9/9/2004; REUTERS, 8/2/2005 JI leaders Azhari Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top are said to have masterminded the bombing largely on their own, since the rest of JI is in disarray by this time. YORK TIMES, 10/7/2005 Entity Tags: Jemaah Islamiyah, Al-Qaeda, Azhari Husin, Noordin Mohammed Top Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks September 9, 2004: Al-Zawahiri Apparently Says ‘Mujaheddin’ Are Gaining Ground in Afghanistan A man thought to be Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al Jazeera A man thought to be al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new video on Al Jazeera saying that the “mujaheddin” (Taliban and al-Qaeda forces) are gaining ground in Afghanistan. Wearing a white turban and glasses and with an assault rifle propped behind him, he says that the fighters control the country’s south and east, and that their victory is “just a matter of time.” He adds: “The Americans are hiding now in trenches and they refuse to come out and meet the mujaheddin, despite the mujaheddin antagonizing them with bombing and shooting and roadblocks around them. Their defense focuses on air strikes, which wastes America’s money in just stirring up sand.” This is the first al-Qaeda video release in a year. 9/9/2004 Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan Category Tags: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Afghanistan, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements September 10, 2004: Troubled Riggs Bank Added to Saudi 9/11 Lawsuit Riggs Bank is added to the list of defendants in a 9/11 lawsuit filed on behalf of 9/11 victims’ relatives (see August 15, 2002). The amended lawsuit alleges, “Riggs’ constant failure to comply with banking oversight laws resulted in funds being forwarded from high risk Saudi Embassy accounts at Riggs Bank to at least two September 11 hijackers.” STREET JOURNAL, 9/13/2004 Riggs Bank is under investigation at the time and will later plead guilty to violating banking laws (see March 29, 2005). The bank also appears to have a long standing but murky relationship with the CIA (see July 2003 and December 31, 2004). Entity Tags: Riggs Bank Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Financing, Other 9/11 Investigations, 9/11 Related Lawsuits September 11, 2004: Some US Officials Recommend Working with Muslim Brotherhood Muslim Brotherhood logo. Muslim Brotherhood The Washington Post reports that “Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some US diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.” The Post describes the Brotherhood as “a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries.… In some nations—Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan—the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created… Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al-Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.” A top FBI counterterrorism official says, “We see some sort of nexus, direct or indirect, to the Brotherhood, in ongoing terrorism cases.” A number of people connected to al-Qaeda, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, and Mohamed Atta, were members of the Brotherhood. Reportedly, “pockets” of US the government “have quietly advocated that the government reach out to the Brotherhood and its allies.” For instance, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer working with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, says, “Bin Laden-ism can only be gutted by fundamentalists.” But former CIA officer Graham Fuller says, “At high levels of the government, there’s no desire to go in the direction of dialogue. It’s still seen as fairly way out.” POST, 9/11/2004 In 2005, it will be reported that some Muslim Brotherhood leaders created a plan in 1982 to infiltrate the West with the ultimate goal of subverting it and conquering it (see December 1982). Entity Tags: Reuel Marc Gerecht, Graham Fuller, Central Intelligence Agency, Muslim Brotherhood Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Al Taqwa Bank September 13, 2004: British Trial Reveals Truth about Overblown Ricin Plot On September 13, after two months of legal argument in court, the British trial begins against Kamal Bourgass and his alleged co-conspirators Mouloud Sihali, David Khalef, Sidali Feddag and Mustapha Taleb. The trial reveals the true extent of the capabilities of the so-called “ricin ring.” The same day of the raid, January 5, 2003, chemical weapons experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire had discovered in more accurate tests that the initial positive result for ricin was false: there was no ricin in the flat (see January 5, 2003). This finding was not released publicly for two years. 4/17/2005 The trial also reveals that the results of the Porton Down test were not released to police and ministers until March 20, 2003, the day after the war in Iraq begins (see January 7, 2003). 9/15/2005 George Smith, a scientist and senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, serves as an expert for some defendants in the trial and confirms that the discovery that the initial ricin finding was a “false positive” was made “well before the outbreak of the war in Iraq.” The alleged ricin plot was used by authorities, including Colin Powell, as evidence against Saddam Hussein’s regime in the build-up to war with Iraq. POST, 4/14/2005 The “poison recipes” discovered in the raid are found to have come from a website in Palo Alto, California, and are the invention of right-wing survivalist Kurt Saxon. His website sells books and CDs with bomb and poison manufacturing instructions. Journalist Duncan Campbell of the Guardian, called as an expert witness, further demonstrates that the instructions could have come from the Mujahedeen Poisons Handbook, which was written by veterans of the Afghan war and had been on the Internet since 1998. In fact, these recipes were useless in the production of weapons of mass destruction. 4/15/2005 The hysteria over the capabilities of ricin is also laid to rest during the trial. It is made clear that ricin is not a weapon of mass destruction and has only ever been used for one-on-one killings and attempted assassinations. Ricin was used by the Bulgarian secret service to kill dissident Georgi Markov on the streets of London in 1978. Professor Alistair Hay, a prominent authority on toxins, says Bourgass’s attempts to manufacture chemical weapons were “incredibly amateurish and unlikely to succeed.” He dismisses the allegations of suspected Algerian al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Meguerba that ricin would be smeared on door handles. To reliably kill, ricin has to be directly injected; swallowing ricin could kill, but is a thousand times less effective, while touching ricin is even less likely to kill. Hay’s testimony leads to the prosecution dropping Meguerba’s claims. They then suggest that Bourgass planned to smear ricin on toothbrushes, and put them back on a shop’s shelves. Professor Hay tells The Independent that this was a highly ineffective method. “The claims made before the trial about this major ricin plot were very, very questionable,” he says. 4/17/2005 Entity Tags: Duncan Campbell, Sidali Feddag, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Alistair Hay, David Khalef, Mouloud Sihali, Mustapha Taleb, Maxwell Hutchkinson, Globalsecurity.org, Kamal Bourgass, Mohammed Meguerba, Kurt Saxon, George Smith Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics September 15, 2004: CIA Is Given Court Order to Preserve All Records about Treatment of Detainees Alvin Hellerstein. Associated Press In 2003, after reports began to surface that some detainees in US custody had been abused, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about the treatment of all detainees caught since 9/11 and held in US custody overseas. The ACLU eventually filed a lawsuit to get the records, and on September 15, 2004, judge Alvin Hellerstein orders the CIA and other government agencies to “produce or identify” all relevant documents by October 15, 2004. 12/14/2007 Hellerstein also rules that classified documents must be identified in a written log and the log must be submitted to him for review. In December 2004, the CIA and other agencies make public a huge amount of information but fail to inform the judge about the videotapes and other classified information (see December 21, 2004). Since that time, the case remains delayed with stays, extensions, and appeals. In December 2005, the CIA will destroy videotapes of the interrogations of at least two high-ranking al-Qaeda detainees (see November 2005). After the destruction of the videotapes is publicly revealed in December 2007, the New York Times will comment on the ACLU case, “Some legal experts say that the CIA would have great difficulty defending what seemed to be a decision not to identify the tapes to the judge, and the subsequent decision to destroy the tapes.” YORK TIMES, 12/13/2007 Legal analyst John Dean will later comment, “It is difficult to see why the CIA is, in fact, not in contempt, given the nature of the ACLU request and the judge’s order.” He will suggest that the case may represent the best chance to find out why and how the CIA destroyed the videotapes. 12/14/2007 Entity Tags: Alvin K. Hellerstein, John Dean, Central Intelligence Agency, American Civil Liberties Union Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics September 16, 2004: Israelis Arrested on 9/11 Sue the US, Claiming Mistreatment and Torture Omer Marmari. Public domain via Israeli TV Four of the five Israelis arrested on 9/11 (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001), Paul and Sivan Kurzberg, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel, file a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the US Justice Department. They claim they were arrested illegally, then held without charge and interrogated and tortured for months. Their lawyer claims the case will serve as a venue to debunk theories that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. 9/16/2004; JERUSALEM POST, 9/16/2004 Forward, a publication geared towards the Jewish population in the US, reported in 2002 that the FBI concluded at least two of the five were Mossad agents and that all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. 3/15/2002 As of early 2008, there have been no further media reports about this lawsuit. Entity Tags: Yaron Shmuel, Sivan Kurzberg, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Israeli art students”, Omer Marmari, Paul Kurzberg Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Israel, 9/11 Related Lawsuits September 16, 2004: New Israeli Art Student Ring in Canada Has Unexplained Link to Islamic Fundamentalist Fundraising In a curious echo of reports of an Israeli “art student spy ring” in the US before 9/11, it is reported that numerous young Israelis claiming to be from non-existent art schools in Israel are being arrested and deported for selling art in Canada. Unlike the earlier events in the US, there are no reports of government offices and workers being targeted. Rather, it appears to be a money making scam to sell cheap Asian art for vastly inflated prices in numerous Canadian cities. However, it is reported these Israelis “may be linked to a group fronting for Islamic fundamentalist fundraisers.” The nature and detail of the connection between the Israelis and Islamic fundamentalists is not explained in the newspaper accounts of this scam. 9/16/2004; JERUSALEM POST, 9/16/2004 Category Tags: Israel September 20, 2004: Fourteen Prisoners Transported from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Fourteen prisoners are transferred from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. They include Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman, a Yemeni security official who had foreknowledge of 9/11 and was seized in Egypt (see August 12, 2000 and September 2002), and Saifulla Paracha, a Pakistani citizen who was arrested and sent to Bagram in July 2003 (see July 2003). All the other twelve detainees had previously been transported to Afghanistan as a part of the CIA’s rendition program. RIDDER, 1/11/2005; GREY, 2007, PP. 257 Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Saifullah Paracha, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, War in Afghanistan Category Tags: Yemeni Militant Collusion September 24, 2004: Porter Goss Sworn in as New CIA Director Porter Goss. CIA Porter Goss becomes the new CIA director, replacing George Tenet (John McLaughlin served as interim director for a few months after Tenet’s sudden resignation—see June 3, 2004). Goss was a CIA field agent, then a Republican representative and co-chair of the 2002 9/11 Congressional Inquiry. RIDDER, 10/25/2004 Ignored Pakistan, ISI during 9/11 Investigations - He took part in secret meetings with Pakistani ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed before 9/11 and on the morning of 9/11 itself (see August 28-30, 2001 and (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Despite some press reports that Mahmood directly ordered money to be sent to hijacker Mohamed Atta, there is virtually no mention of Mahmood or Pakistan in the Inquiry report that Goss co-chaired. Such issues appear to be forgotten by the US press, but the Times of India raised them when his nomination was announced. OF INDIA, 8/10/2004 Will Lead 'Purge' - During his confirmation hearings Goss pledges that he will be a nonpartisan CIA director, but he will purge the CIA of all but “true believers” in Bush’s policies shortly after becoming director (see November-December 2004). RIDDER, 10/25/2004 CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson will later write that Goss “arrives at headquarters with the clear intention to houseclean, and from the beginning is seen more as a crusader and occupier than former colleague. He brings with him several loyal Hill staffers, known for their abrasive management style, and immediately sets to work attempting to bring the CIA—with special emphasis on the often wild and willful operations directorate—to heel, per White House orders. White House officials had suspected that CIA officials had leaked information prior to the election about the intelligence surrounding the war in Iraq that put the agency in a better light. Thus, Goss’s orders from the administration are probably along the lines of ‘get control of it.’” She will write that while most at the CIA welcome the idea of reform as a means to rebuild the agency’s credibility, “Goss’s heavy-handedness be bitterly resented.” Goss will fail to have any meaningful dealings with “senior agency managers,” will spend “little time with the heads of foreign intelligence services (all of whom the CIA relied on for cooperation with counterterrorism and counterproliferation matters),” will fail to sufficiently engage “in day-to-day activities,” and will fail to gain a grasp of “some of the details of operations.” 2007, PP. 211-212 Entity Tags: Porter J. Goss, John E. McLaughlin, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics September 27, 2004: Al-Qaeda-Linked Militant Leader Killed in Pakistan, but Circumstances of His Killing Are Questioned Amjad Farooqi. Associated Press Amjad Farooqi, a leader of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, is allegedly shot and killed in Nawabshah, Pakistan, a town 170 miles north of Karachi. Farooqi had been indicted for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 (see January 31, 2002), and was said to have been a mastermind of the two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 (see December 14 and 25, 2003). Farooqi is also believed to have taken part in the hijacking of an Indian airliner in late 1999 (see December 24-31, 1999). He is said to be close to al-Qaeda leader Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Farooqi was allegedly tracked by his mobile home to a hideout, which was then surrounded by police. He and two associates were killed after a two-hour gun battle, while three others were arrested. A senior Pakistani official says, “Farooqi’s elimination is a crushing blow to the al-Qaeda network in Pakistan because he was the man who had been providing al-Qaeda terrorists with the manpower to carry out attacks.” POST, 9/27/2004 Staged Death? - However, the Asia Times reported in June 2004 that Farooqi had been secretly arrested already and that Musharraf was saving him for a politically opportune time. TIMES, 6/5/2004 After the announcement of his death, the Asia Times further report that its sources believe Farooqi indeed was killed, but his death was staged and he had been arrested months before. It is claimed that Pakistani authorities wanted him dead to close investigations into the murder of Daniel Pearl and the assassination attempts against Musharraf. In both cases, there are unanswered questions about the links between al-Qaeda and forces within the Pakistani government. Furthermore, some say the 1999 Indian airline hijacking he was said to have been a part of was planned by al-Qaeda-linked militants working with the Pakistani ISI (see December 24-31, 1999). Allegedly Overhyped - The Asia Times further claims that while Farooqi was involved in Pearl’s death and the Musharraf assassinations, he was not the “super villain” he was made out to be in the months before his death. They also portray him as a stand-alone operator who worked with al-Qaeda and a number of Pakistani militant groups, but did not directly belong to any one group. TIMES, 9/28/2004; ASIA TIMES, 9/29/2004 Questions Unanswered - One senior Pakistani law-enforcement official says after the announcement of his death, “It was very important to catch Amjad Farooqi alive. Farooqi was the key link between the foot soldiers and those who ordered the murder Musharraf.” Another says, “Amjad Farooqi is now dead with the most important secret and we still don’t know for sure the real identity of the Pakistani or al-Qaeda or any other foreign elements who had launched Farooqi into action to remove General Musharraf from the scene.” TIMES, 9/30/2004 Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Al-Qaeda, Amjad Farooqi Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Key Captures and Deaths September 27, 2004: Bush Says ‘Taliban No Longer Is in Existence’ President Bush, campaigning for reelection, says in a speech, “And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free.” HOUSE, 9/27/2004 Entity Tags: Taliban, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan, 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: Afghanistan September 30, 2004: President Bush Exaggerates Success against Al-Qaeda During Presidential Debate On a September 30, 2004, presidential debate with John Kerry, President Bush says, “75 percent of known al-Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice.” But there is no evidence to support such a number. He uses this same number in other speeches around this time. In 2003, Bush’s top advisers typically said that more than one-third of the most wanted leaders had been found. Prior to the Republican convention in early September, the White House had claimed that “two-thirds” of the “senior al-Qaeda and associated leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators” had been captured or killed. But while the White House numbers were increasing as the November 2004 presidential election drew closer, the number of top al-Qaeda figures captured or killed remained essentially unchanged - Hassan Ghul was captured in early 2004 (see January 23, 2004). In October 2004, the Washington Post learns 28 of the approximately 30 names on a classified and unpublished “high-value targets” list of al-Qaeda leaders. Only 14, or half, are known to be killed or captured. (Other al-Qaeda leaders captured in 2004, such as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (see July 25-29, 2004), apparently are not considered important enough to be included in the list seen by the Washington Post.) POST, 10/22/2004; AMERICAN PROSPECT, 11/1/2004 In 2008, it will be reported that, of the 37 people the CIA deemed the most important al-Qaeda leaders in 2002, only 15 have been captured or killed. 2008, PP. 280-281 Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: 2004 Presidential Election Category Tags: High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics